Different Date conversion from String to Date.

Introduction

Sometimes project requirements demand capturing Date in string,and sometimes it's also required to convert from string to Date-Time.
For working with String to Date conversion,we have to convert string date to Date then apply some format to have a Date-time values.

There are lots of Date Format as Microsoft has provided us,we can give our own format.
DateTime.Parse supports many formats like dd/MM/yyyy, MMM-dd-yyyy, dd-MM-yyyy and many more formats.It is versatile and it can provoke a FormatException.

With Date object ToString,DateTime.Parse or DateTime.ParseExact method,we can pass above date formats to get the date we desired.

DateTime.Parse:- It is a static method that we can call without using a Date-Time instance. It returns a new Date-Time instance,which is represented as a Struct. If time is not provided, "12 AM" is used.

TryParse:-Whenever we have a string containing a date and time that may be invalid in formatting or that never occurred,we can use the DateTime.TryParse static method.It is in the System namespace.

It converts the string to a Date-Time instance without raising an exception on errors.

Objective

Different Date conversion from String to Date.

Using the code

We will understand with an example:-

In the code-behind,we will create one method named convert_string_to_date() and in the Page Load event,we will call that method as shown below:-

 protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!IsPostBack)
        {
            convert_string_to_date();
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// converts following string date into date pattern
    /// </summary>
    private void convert_string_to_date()
    {
        try
        {
            string ds1 = "Sep 2013";
            string ds2 = "Monday 2 September 2013 14:15:33";
            string ds3 = "2,9,13";
            string ds4 = "2/9/2013 14:15:33";
            string ds5 = "2:15 PM";

            // 1st September 2013 00:00:00
            DateTime dt1 = DateTime.Parse(ds1);

            // 2nd September 2013 14:15:33
            DateTime dt2 = DateTime.Parse(ds2);

            // 2nd September 2013 00:00:00
            DateTime dt3 = DateTime.Parse(ds3);

            // 2nd September 2013 14:15:33
            DateTime dt4 = DateTime.Parse(ds4);

            // Current Date 14:15:00
            DateTime dt5 = DateTime.Parse(ds5);

            // Display the converted DateTime objects.
            Response.Write(string.Format("String: {0} DateTime: {1}", ds1, dt1));
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            Response.Write(string.Format("String: {0} DateTime: {1}", ds2, dt2));
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            Response.Write(string.Format("String: {0} DateTime: {1}", ds3, dt3));
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            Response.Write(string.Format("String: {0} DateTime: {1}", ds4, dt4));
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            Response.Write(string.Format("String: {0} DateTime: {1}", ds5, dt5));
            Response.Write("<br/>");
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            // Parse only strings containing LongTimePattern.
            DateTime dt6 = DateTime.ParseExact("2:13:30 PM", "h:mm:ss tt", null);

            // Parse only strings containing RFC1123Pattern.
            DateTime dt7 = DateTime.ParseExact(
            "Mon, 02 Sep 2013 14:13:30 GMT", "ddd, dd MMM yyyy HH':'mm':'ss 'GMT'",
            null);

            // Parse only strings containing MonthDayPattern.
            DateTime dt8 = DateTime.ParseExact("December 05", "MMMM dd", null);

            DateTime dt9 = DateTime.ParseExact("December 05", "MMMM dd", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

            var dt10 = DateTime.ParseExact("24/12/2013", "dd/MM/yyyy", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

            Response.Write("<b>Below Output Displays the Converted DateTime objects</b>");
            Response.Write("<br/>");

            // Display the converted DateTime objects.
            Response.Write("Date Conversion: " + dt6);
            Response.Write("<br/>");
            Response.Write("Date Conversion: " + dt7);
            Response.Write("<br/>");
            Response.Write("Date Conversion: " + dt8);
            Response.Write("<br/>");
            Response.Write("Date Conversion: " + dt9);
            Response.Write("<br/>");
            Response.Write("Date Conversion: " + dt10);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex;
        }
    }

Output:

Conclusion

Today,we learned Different Date conversion from String to Date.

Reference

http://www.dotnetperls.com/datetime-parse